This invention relates to cellular communications and, in particular, to an aircraft-based network for wireless subscriber stations that provides wireless telecommunication services in the aircraft for a wide variety of services and wireless communication devices.
It is a problem in the field of cellular mobile telecommunication services to provide customers with high quality communication services in a unified manner via a wireless communication medium. Existing cellular mobile telecommunication systems serve terrestrial (termed ground-based herein) wireless subscriber stations, but this service was traditionally not extensible to non-terrestrial wireless subscriber stations due to signal interference problems between ground-based and non-terrestrial wireless subscriber stations. The above-noted U.S. Patents disclose a non-terrestrial mobile telecommunication system and a wireless subscriber station operable in such a system, which provides subscribers with cellular mobile telecommunication services in the non-terrestrial region as well as the terrestrial region.
However, most existing wireless subscriber stations are incapable of being used both in ground-based cellular mobile telecommunication systems and non-terrestrial cellular mobile telecommunication systems. In particular, there is no network operable in an aircraft that is capable of serving a plurality of wireless subscriber stations of various designs. The passengers in a commercial airliner are typically equipped with a variety of mobile wireless communication devices, such as laptop computers, cellular telephones, MP3 music players, Personal Digital Assistants (PDA), and the like (all collectively termed wireless subscriber stations herein), which are not served by any communication network when the aircraft is in flight.
The above described problems are solved and a technical advance achieved in the field by the aircraft-based network for wireless subscriber stations that provides wireless telecommunication services in the aircraft for both the terrestrial (ground-based) and non-terrestrial regions via the use of an aircraft based network. The aircraft-based network for wireless subscriber stations enables the subscriber to use their mobile wireless subscriber station in all locations for uninterrupted wireless communications services. In addition, the aircraft-based network for wireless subscriber stations implements data transmission capabilities for use in the aircraft to provide Flight Information Services, real time monitoring of aircraft operation, as well as enhanced data communication services for the passengers in the aircraft. These wireless communications can be among aircraft occupants as well as between aircraft occupants and other destinations.
This data communications capability of the aircraft-based network for wireless subscriber stations can be used to link the aircraft and its occupants to a private data communication network as well as to provide access to public data communication networks, such as the Internet. Thus, the subscriber who is equipped with a wireless subscriber station can maintain a single set of identification data (MIN, ESN) regardless of their location in the multi-dimensional cellular mobile telecommunication system and independent of the mode of operation: ground-based cellular communications or non-terrestrial cellular communications.